


There's so Many Shades of Black

by CruelisnotMason



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Bad Ending, Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Hurt, Kuron (Voltron) Lives, M/M, Post S6, Rough Sex, Smut, dealing with death, s8 non compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:08:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21849418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CruelisnotMason/pseuds/CruelisnotMason
Summary: After Shiro's transfer into the clone body, the Paladins have a stopover at a deserted place. It turns out that not everything worked as planned.
Relationships: Keith/Kuron (Voltron), Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Kuron & Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 41
Collections: VLD Angst Bang 2019





	There's so Many Shades of Black

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags.
> 
> This Fic was written for the VLD Angst Bang! My wonderful partner was [clueless_paladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkbadger/pseuds/inkbadger) who made the art for this fic. (I will link it asap)!  
> Many thanks at [muse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/museaway/) for beta-ing this fic<3

_The feeling of flying is anchored deep within his soul.  
_ _Somewhere within his essence, there’s the feeling of drowning too. Falling is like flying in theory; but in Shiro’s memories, flying quickly becomes drowning._

_Fading into the background and becoming one with the darkness is a pain unspoken of. It’s a recurring theme, an image from the 3 am nightmares he had throughout all of his life. They aren’t the kind ones where you can go to sleep right after waking up screaming; they are nightmares that lap at you when the world is still black and has not awoken yet._

_Through the darkness pushes a faint splatter of red, almost as if it’s not really existent. An inflamed light in the darkness, but almost as dark as the shadow itself._

_Shiro tries to capture the light, seize the blood, but there are two hands closing around his throat. Black blood runs down those strong fingers, as they are closing off his air._

_For the last time, he has to say goodbye to the world he fell in love with; has to give his farewell to the feelings which felt as if they were long forgotten, too._

*

“How did you notice?”

Keith turns to him mid-step. There's nothing here on this godless, desert-like planet but them. The Paladins aren’t with them at this moment either, since Keith and he went out to find supplies and check for possible inhabitants together. Unsurprisingly, there’s no one, not one living soul.

He stands here - with Keith - because he has questions. He doesn’t care about the other Paladins, because they simply don’t notice _it_. Keith is the only one who suspects _anything_.

The mask of impassivity is like a second skin on the Red Paladin’s face. He’s becoming better and better at hiding his feelings. It’s hard to read him, but this is the only way he has ever known Keith. 

The Keith in his memories is different – long gone is the rowdy teenager with emotions open and easy readable as a good book. He never got to know _that_ side of Keith, really, only learns it from the fading memories that aren’t his own.

Keith doesn’t answer his question. He only looks at him, tired and guarded. He’s intelligent, but not more intelligent than the others. There is not a brain cell more to him than there is to the _princess_ , but she lacks the emotional intelligence that Keith owns in bulk and hides in that small body of his.

“Why haven’t you told anyone?” he asks Keith.

Keith furrows his brows, then his face relaxes. There’s still the crease of annoyance visible on his forehead partly hidden by the wild mess of black strands. He’s unwavering, holding his gaze even though his eyes look tired, craving sleep.

He thinks of the Keith in his memories that aren’t his memories – and it doesn’t fit. The Keith in his memories is afraid, young, defenseless.

But both Keiths – the one from the memories and the one in front of him – they are the same. This Keith is identical with the one from Shiro’s memories, even the old ones, when Keith was weaker and smaller than he is now. He’s just as unafraid, if not more, even though he tried so hard to kill him.

“I don’t want them to worry,” comes Keith’s answer. Quick, swift, ripped off like a bandage. It’s so simple, it’s so _Keith_ – 

He _knows_ it’s typical for him, even though he's really only known him for a year. 

  
  


The Keith in his own memories doesn’t like _him_ – he likes another version of him. If Kuron wants to name it, he’d call it his ‘original version’. Keith loves Shiro, vibrantly so. But Keith doesn’t love _him_. 

Kuron has an autonomy of his own, isn’t like Shiro at all. Shiro is painful, sad, prepared to draw his last breath and fade way. But then he struggles and resurfaces, right before his time is up, right before he’s drowning in the black lake of Kuron’s soul.

_What a nuisance._

Shiro has been silent for a while now. It’s good Keith doesn’t know the reason behind that.

If Keith knew the full meaning behind it, he’d probably kill him.

Keith chose his distance already, chose to talk less and less to him. The Paladins act like they don’t notice, but they do, and they throw Kuron glances when Keith is away. He doesn't mind. The connection Shiro had with the Paladins is long gone – Kuron doesn’t care about them. Maybe he's feeling like a stranger to them all since the connection they share never was the same for him at all.

The Paladins aren’t fond of Kuron, even though they don’t know he’s not the same as Shiro. They don’t try to talk to him. They don't keep their distance from him like Keith does, but they also don’t try to get closer. If they address him, they call him Shiro, as if he was still there. 

Shiro means white and white means purity, or death; when Kuron's trying to imagine himself different from Shiro, he thinks of himself as something Black – but not like the Black Lion’s soul. It’s a shade of Black that laps at you like the ocean waves lap at the grey sky in a full moon. The ocean waves absorbing darkness through their growing movements on the horizontal line, growing, growing, growing – until they swallow everything, even the shining moon. The Black takes away, swallows all, doesn’t care for the clear reflection of bright celestial bodies but eats them whole, too, until their fire goes out with a bang. 

If Shiro is the bright and pure light, then Kuron is at least living.

Sometimes Kuron wonders if Keith treasures the first time they met as much as he does. It wasn’t in the school where Shiro and him first met; it was when Shiro was gone and Kuron came back to the team in his stead.

Does Keith remember how he cared for Kuron back then? Does Keith knows he cares about him? That he thinks about Keith? That he's his own person? 

Does Keith mourn that _he’s_ here but Shiro isn’t?

*

As they sit by a small campfire in the evening, Keith is nowhere to be seen. The others don’t address it. They trust Keith and are used to his loner tendencies by now. Only Hunk asks if anyone has seen him, but then Lance mentions Keith walking back into the Black Lion’s direction. They shrug. Hunk looks a little concerned, but the whole team is too tired and restless to care.

Nobody is happy that they have to take a stopover on this dull planet when they’d rather fly to Earth directly. But the Lions were hit by another damaging energy wave in the void of the universe, and they have to recharge first. 

As Kuron sits with the others by the fire, he doesn’t talk with them – even though he spents all this time with them, he doesn’t know them that well. Additionally, he fears they have their suspicions about him as well.

He, too, wonders where Keith went. One possibility is that Keith went off to talk to the Black Lion. Kuron hears Keith do so at night. When Keith thinks he’s sleeping, he whispers desperate words into the night. The Black Lion never replies.

_“Shiro. Please, please. Please answer me. I can’t do this without you. I can’t give up – please, I’ll do anything—"_

When Kuron hears him calling for Shiro, he feigns deep sleep. Sometimes he feigns it so much that sleep will actually catch him and suffocate him in dreamless slumber. Even if there’s nothing he dreams about, he will wake up tired in the morning.

There’s no reason to wake up tired. There’s no reason to feel guilty. He doesn’t feel guilty about wanting to live.

*

It gets worse with every day – Keith stops looking like himself and starts looking like a tired, pale-faced copy instead. His friends are worried – he keeps dodging their questions. Keith closes himself off completely to them all.

At night when Kuron sleeps, he hears the Black Lion’s quiet growl nagging at his consciousness. Everyday Kuron sleeps on the small bunk next to Keith, and every day that passes, he feels more caged inside the beast.

One day, Kuron calls for Shiro himself.

The realm that he created for himself – his own conscious space dipped in black – he’s here alone.

" _Shiro_?” he calls out. The echo passes over and over until it’s swallowed and never heard again.

No answer. Kuron exhales, feeling relieved.

Another week passes. Right on time, as everyone is settling down for the evening, Keith leaves.

Kuron quickly follows him – driven by the fear of exposure if Keith can’t hold up his act in the end. But it's not the only reason why he follows him: Kuron _misses_ him. Keith tried everything to cut the ties he has with him, tried to stop every interaction between them. It hurts.

Kuron won’t have it – he did not fight this hard for his life to not to be in Keith’s anymore.

He finds Keith easily – he never strays too far, mindful of the others’ concerns. When Kuron sits down next to him, Keith doesn’t try to hide his tension, but he hides his tears.

It’s fruitless. Kuron saw them running down his face. A small thorn of guilt stabs his gut, but he pushes it all away. 

“Hey,” he says softly. 

Keith looks pointedly into the other direction. 

“Keith,” he tries again.

They sit in silence first, but it’s cold without a campfire. When Kuron looks around, he notices that the desert looks a little bit like Shiro’s memories. Sometimes he goes through Shiro’s memories like someone goes through a catalogue of furniture. There are categories: unhappy memories; memories of disappointment, rejection, confusion, hurt. 

It’s the memories Kuron wants to see most, because sometimes Shiro’s hurt will do him good.

Keith still sits there in silence, tears rolling down again. Kuron almost gets up and leaves, because there’s no sense in trying to talk to someone that doesn’t want to talk to him, but then Keith opens his mouth; coughs first, voice breaking when he says his first words.

“Did you-“ He takes a deep breath. “Did you know he’s gone?”

The question hardly takes Kuron by surprise – he’s known he’d be interrogated at some point.

“No,” he lies. 

Keith’s breath shudders. He holds his legs tightly to his body, curls himself into a small ball. “But he is…?”

_“It’s time for you to go,” Shiro tells him – he glows within the darkness of Kuron’s consciousness – blindingly so. Kuron hates it, hates him, hates the prospect of giving this body up and not continuing the life he’s learned to love._

Kuron nods. Keith wheezes.

“But, how?” It’s barely audible – and it’s obvious he starts losing his mind for it.

_“No. You wanted to go, you wanted me to kill us instead of him! You don’t deserve living—”_

_Shiro looks angry – Kuron didn’t know his own face could look like that, but then, at the clone facility—_

_“You wanted to kill Keith!” Shiro shouts and the whole realm shudders. In Keith's eyes, Shiro might be a real-life angel, but right now he's screaming bloody darkness into Kuron’s head._

“I don’t know.” Kuron shrugs and doesn’t meet Keith’s gaze.

_Shiro charges for him, but he doesn’t have his Altean arm in the Black Lion's consciousness._

_He jumps and hits like a blood-lusting archangel, wings spreading and feathers scattering as he punches Kuron right in his chest._

_He propels several meters through the mind space. It doesn’t change that this is, in fact, not real. The blow cracks his rib – he’s spluttering blood. With Shiro fighting him, he will die._

_He will never win in a fight against the champion, especially not when the Champion is fighting for Keith._

“He can’t just disappear – it doesn’t make sense!” Keith sobs loudly and unfiltered, cries echoing through the desert. It’s not the same desert as in Shiro’s memories. Shiro’s desert is warm and melancholic – _this_ desert is cold.

_The hits get harder with every time. Soon Shiro will have overtaken him and reclaimed Kuron’s body. Shiro beats his face hard, kicks his torso. He’s faster, harder, madder._

_Kuron thinks that this is his body – his mind space. It’s not Shiro’s place to be._

“He did, I’m sorry, Keith. There’s nothing we can do.”

Keith looks at his hands first for a while, doesn’t say anything. Then he slowly raises his gaze again. 

“How would you know that?” he asks him.

_Kuron vanishes as Shiro runs for him another time – leaves nothing but darkness and some fine grains of sand behind. Shiro hits air, looks around him frantically._

_Kuron’s punch comes out of nowhere, and he slams him right into the ground._

  
  


“How can you know without having seen him leave?” Keith asks again. Kuron’s pulse spikes.

“I just... I don’t know, I just know? Keith.” He looks at his own hands, “I know it’s hard, but—”

“You,” Keith breathes. “ _You_ —”

_Shiro struggles against the weight of his own, as Kuron cages him between his thighs. But then he pushes him off successfully, tries to kick him again. Kuron vanishes with a smile. He’s powerful here, more powerful than Shiro. That’s good._

_He doesn’t want to die, doesn’t want to leave. Not now. Not now._

“You had something to do with it,” Keith shouts – eyes red and puffy and nose running.

“I didn’t, he wanted to—”

“Wanted to what?”

_Shiro doesn’t see him coming, doesn’t even feel him. In Kuron’s territory, he’s not at power._

_“Come out! Show yourself!” Shiro demands, growling voice shuddering through the void._

_Kuron’s yellow eyes glow in the dark first, then his smile appears. There’s no body yet, but it’s coming, coming closer._

_When he feels Kuron’s presence right behind him, Shiro knows it’s over. But it’s still too late for him._

_One second too late to do something against the hands closing around his throat._

_They bruise his throat as they tighten their grip, make violet flowers appear on his skin._

_Shiro struggles, but he’s not strong enough. He survived the captivity, his death – but he won’t survive himself in the body of his enemy. It’s over. It’s over. It’s over._

_Let go._

_“Don’t,” Shiro says, voice strained, “I can’t leave him, I—”_

“I, Keith,” Kuron says, voice staggering, “I couldn’t let him take over. I wanted to stay. He would have made me disappear. I want to stay with you. I really l—”

Keith’s eyes are wild. He doesn’t let him finish.

“I _love_ HIM,” Keith shouts at him as gets up, “What did you do to him?!”

  
  


**_I haven’t even told him I love him yet._ **

_Kuron hears his thoughts clearly in his mind. His hands press tighter around Shiro's throat and Shiro’s losing air. He's trying to fill his lungs rapidly, unable to speak, unable to struggle anymore._

_He doesn’t get to say those last words out loud, but Kuron hears them loud and clear in his mind, the last trace of Shiro that ever existed—_

_– and that’s how Shiro's life, after all his persistence, ends._

  
  
  


Keith looks at him like a wild animal. 

He and Shiro share the same look; eyes with the daunted look of never seeing their most important person again, a threat to their sanity.

“Why?” Keith yells at him. “Why did you do that to me?”

Kuron stays mute – and Keith leaps for him. They struggle against each other, but Kuron doesn’t want to fight Keith. His love for him is painful, too.

Keith held him when he was afraid and confused, not understanding his own faith. He loved Keith for being there, being with him; Keith comforted him when he was in pain. Kuron can never forget. 

Keith struggles against him, hits him, bites him, scratches him – Kuron tries to grab his hands, tries to prevent himself from getting hurt only halfheartedly. If Keith were capable of killing him, he would’ve already drawn his sword and ended him. Kuron knows that he is Keith’s last link to Shiro. 

“I hate you,” Keith keeps shouting and crying as he hammers onto Kuron’s chest. They tumble over the dirty ground together, Keith crying and yelling loudly, on top of him. 

It’s enough. He can’t take it anymore.

Kuron rolls them over and holds onto his wrists while Keith cries unashamedly and struggles him. Kuron does nothing more, wants to hold onto him and wait until he’s calmed down, even if it might never happen. He places his weight on Keith, trying to ground him. Keith doesn’t really struggle anymore.

Suddenly, the desperate pants that left Keith’s lips morph into something entirely different.

Keith groans and bucks up against him, almost letting Kuron lose his balance – Keith's hard, stammering and moaning and Kuron grips his wrists harder out of reflex which leaves Keith to let out another groan.

Kuron promises himself he will stop if he’s rejected, but Keith welcomes the kiss like he welcomes a dagger into his heart. He moans, kisses, bites and licks into Kuron’s mouth.

“Shiro,” he moans, and it hurts them both. But neither can stop.

Kuron grinds down on him, his hips shuddering from this new feeling, another one he only dreamt of. He eases the grip on Keith’s wrists a little. Keith isn’t struggling anymore. He wrangles one arm free to hold onto Kuron’s clothes and pull him against him, then rolls his hips as he continues to groan. The tears have not fully stopped, but they only are a secondary symptom of Keith’s feelings for now.

He pushes Kuron’s pants down and his own, too, where they lie on the dirty ground in the dark. The feeling of Kuron’s hard and unclothed cock leaves Keith moaning and bucking up against him again and again – his mutters and stutters become one with the shadows. Kuron desperately tries to give back all the feverish things that he’s taking from Keith right now, all the things Keith throws at him in despair.

“Fuck me,” Keith groans, “fuck me—” 

Kuron bites down on his neck, grunts and moans, too. Keith is taking them both into his hand, stroking them off harshly and shouts, because the feeling is both overwhelming and hurts so good.

“Keith,” he mutters, kissing his jaw, but Keith pulls his head away – he wants _this_ , but he doesn’t want to kiss him. Keith wants a memory of what could have been with Shiro. He doesn't want him.

“Shiro,” Keith groans quietly. “Shiro, f…fuck me,” he moans again.

Kuron feels his hips stuttering for the final sloppy movements, feels the warmth of Keith’s dick and the moment Keith spills over the edge. It’s what gets Kuron gets off, too, in the end.

  
  


When they are done, Keith is in pain – panting – crying. Again.

Kuron rolls off from him, to give him some space. He’s looking up to the stars, so close, and threatening to fall tonight, breathes in the air that smells like salt and mustiness. He listens to the small whimpers next to him, clenches his own fist.

It shouldn't have happened like this.

All Kuron wanted was to be with him, for Keith to love him. Not to give up on his own life. Kuron couldn’t have left Shiro his body and the life he can have, not when he only recently got a taste of how it is to _live_. Kuron did it all to be with Keith; he desperately wanted to be with him, but in the end—

  
  


He hurt him, he hurt him so much. 

  
  


The wind blows over the sandy hills, plays with the black strands of Keith’s hair. His small whimpers slowly fade out. Kuron lets Keith have his space, doesn’t talk to him or touch him; he knows that’s not what he wants right now. Kuron hopes that waiting could change something, that lying here forever could change everything that happened.

The quiet between them is painful and just like the quiet Kuron has to live with in his head since Shiro was gone.

But into the quiet rips a loud growl – shattering the darkness around Kuron and Keith within a second. Kuron watches the familiar image of the Black Lion ascending and diving through the air. Keith goes completely still, eyes snapping toward the sprinting beast.

Kuron feels death before he knows of it. Just like Shiro did.

“No!” Keith shouts and gets up – but it’s man against _beast_ , against one that fell in love all by itself, and hates to give up on the one he had been harboring in his mind for so long.

“No,” Keith begs. He’s a small figure against a giant frame, but he holds his arms high over his head nonetheless. “No, Black,” he screams. “He’s everything that’s left to me now, Black, please!”

Just like Kuron swallowed Shiro, just like darkness defeated light, despair wins over the beast. Kuron takes his last breath when the shadow of the Lion covers him completely – he stands right in front of it. 

Keith’s small figure won’t hold it back, so Kuron pushes Keith out of the way. It happens all too fast. It always does.

“Black!” Keith stumbles and shouts, but his cries are ignored. 

“Black,” Keith says, as darkness falls over him anew.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this fic and want to recommend it, feel free to retweet it [here](https://twitter.com/CruelisB/status/1208165782708006918?s=19)~


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